wouldn't—"

"How did you ever happen to crash here?"

"Dr. Theller sent me with Paul Hedrik, that new boy, you remember, the nice blond one—to check casualty lists in San Francisco. We were crossing the Park, at about thirty thousand, when we ran out of rocket fuel. Well, that wasn't so serious, we could easily make a long glide, and if we could find a place safe from these—worms—we could make a helicopter landing. But Paul saw this little canyon dead ahead. It was the only safe looking place for miles. That meant we had to come in at a steep angle. He licked in the braking jets, hoping there would be a little fuel left in the lines. There was. One of the jets was plugged or something—it exploded back into the cockpit. Paul was killed instantly. I was stunned. The ship was out of control, but I finally came to and managed to make a crash landing somehow."

"Where's Paul's body?" Art asked.

"Still in there." She pointed to the wrecked flier. "My televisor was smashed. I couldn't stand the thought of sleeping in there. I made a little camp over there by the creek. It was awfully cold, even though I built a fire. But I wasn't frightened—I had my friends—"

"Your friends!" exclaimed Art. "Who—"

"Don't you see them?" she asked, pointing. And he did see what the gloom of the forest had at first hidden from his unaccustomed eyes. The leafy corridors were swarming with creatures. Deer, oppossum, raccoon, bear, even a puma or two, all were gathered there in dumb resignation. They knew with unerring instinct that they were trapped, that there was no escape from this tiny island. They made no attempt to molest each other, or the humans who such a short time ago had been their deadly enemies. They drank occasionally from the little creek, but they did not eat.

"You see, I couldn't be lonely," she continued. "It could even have been fun, if I hadn't known that those millions of horrible little jaws were out there in the dark, gnawing, gnawing. You can even hear them. You can hear the big trees crashing down, all day, all night."

"Easy, honey—it's all over now. We're going to get out of here. We'll get Paul's body, and—"

"But Art, don't you see what this means? If Paul hadn't forgotten to fill the fuel tank, it we had had a full tank, we'd have been blown to atoms when that jet exploded—it was only an accident that I escaped. But that plugged jet was no 

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